Durston tents

[264mag]

Does anyone have experience with these tents? Very well reviewed and seem to be well designed. Looks like a potential lightweight option for early mountain hunts.


https://durstongear.com/product/x-mid-1p

[RJHunter]

I haven't seen them before but they look very similar to the Tarptent Stratospire I used sheep hunting last season. It was a great tent and very light weight.

https://www.tarptent.com/product/stratospire-2/

[dandurston]

Feel free to ask away if you have any questions.

I have a video explaining the X-Mid 2P here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al1jrkKrVYo

The X-Mid has some similarity to the TarpTent StratoSpire but it based around a simpler to pitch and more weight efficient rectangle shape. Instead of a hexagon shaped fly, it uses a rectangular fly with a unique diagonal floor to create vestibules inside that. That means a lot less guesswork during the pitch, fewer seams and no struts. I have an infographic comparing these two tents here:
https://imgur.com/ABEMoaB

In addition to being simpler to pitch, the X-Mid is substantially lighter (36 vs 42oz), packs up short without struts (can store horizontally), uses no-sag polyester fabric (which is especially important for a trekking pole tent where the canopy is part of the structure), factory seam taped, larger vents, doesn't absorb up to a pound of water weight in the rain, etc.

I design and test the tents here in BC and then we build them in the same premium factory as MSR and Mountain Hardwear tents.

[huntcoop]

Thanks Dan, how do they stand up to wind? The wind of August 2020 killed my tent and ruined our hunt....

[RJHunter]

Thanks Dan

That's good to know that you are based in BC, I missed looking at the about page. Where do we look for pricing and ordering?
I do like the simpler pitch for sure.

[dandurston]

Talking about wind is a tricky one because people's assessment of wind is often quite inaccurate. Wind can feel pretty intense so many people get out in 40km/hr wind and think they camped in 80km/hr. Or people check the wind forecast and see 100km/hr at the summit and then think the 40km/hr they got at their sheltered site in the forest was really 100km/hr. That leads to people thinking they need +100km/hr wind performance, which is actually pretty extreme. Ideally if the winds were anything like this, you'd seek out a sheltered site (although I know sheep hunters love to camp in the open alpine).

Wind performance depends quite a bit on how the tent is pitched and what you're expecting. Overall, it's not a 4-season tent but does quite well when pitched well. The tent can pitch with as few as 4 stakes but obviously for high winds you'll want to add a few more and make sure you're using good stakes. In windy conditions I add the optional peak guylines and up to 8 extra stakes around the base. Like this, the tent can be quite solid. There's lots of verified reports of it doing well in 40-60km/hr winds and some claims of it surviving 80-100km/hr but hard to say if the winds were really that intense. We've never had anyone damage one in high winds. Only things that have ever happened are people have broken guylines (we have now switched to thicker cord) and of course pulled stakes out, so good stakes and staking technique is important.

A nice thing is that the tent is wind stable throughout the pitch, so you're not battling against the wind to erect the structure. There's no step to the process where it would fall down without your support, as shown here:
https://youtu.be/Al1jrkKrVYo?t=152

The weakest link are the side panels, so it's ideal to have one of the ends or corners pointed into the wind. In high winds we've seen some people add mid-panel guyouts by tying to the door toggles. We haven't tested those for that, but it actually seems to work well.

[dandurston]

That's good to know that you are based in BC, I missed looking at the about page. Where do we look for pricing and ordering?

I design and test the tents here in Golden, BC and work with the factory to dial in the production. Once perfect tents are rolling off the production line, my work is done and things are turned over to my partner Drop.com so I can focus on the fun parts (design and testing) while they handle sales/marketing/warranty/customer service etc. The tents are co-branded as Drop + Durston. Drop sells them on their own site and on Amazon. The lowest cost for Canadians is Amazon.ca

Pricing is $310 (1P) or $410 (2P), which is quite affordable because we only sell online so there's no retail markup. For comparison, the MSR Hubba Hubba is produced at the same factory for a roughly similar cost of production but sells for about $600 at MEC. That includes the 18% tariff on tents that Canada has, which applies to pretty much all brands. If you buy from outside Canada that'll commonly get charged upon import (in addition to sales tax), so for example a TarpTent StratoSpire 2 is $359 USD but with the 18% tariff it works out to $550 CAD + sales tax.

The largest collection of reviews is on Drop's website. They have about 150 reviews (2P) or 250 reviews (1P) that are not edited/filtered in any way (many brands cheat and remove bad reviews) and yet average 4.8 - 4.9 out of 5.
https://drop.com/buy/drop-x-mid-2-pe...eviews#reviews

[RJHunter]

Do you have an option for a solid inner liner with minimal mesh?

[dandurston]

Not at the moment but working on developing that. Can't promise anything right now but hope to have that available in the fall.

[RJHunter]

Cool. FYI I used my Tarptent for a late September hunt last year and found there was a bit too much mesh in the solid inner. I wrote to them and suggested they add the ability to close the mesh right off if needed. Bit chilly some nights and hard to keep water from freezing.

your design looks great thanks for all the info!

thanks for the info!